"I'd like to congratulate Worry2 for slappin' me around liked a red-headed stepchild."
-Omnipresent
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| Thunder vs Storms | | | Author: | | | IP: | 199.94.7XXXX | | Date: | 02/05/00 11:02 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Sharandar: 7.8750 |  | This report is going to be woefully without pictures--because for the majority of this game I was scrambling to keep up and fighting for my life, far too much so to worry about getting screenshots. In the end, though, I had to this--because the observer wasn't going to BR it and this was probably the most intense game on Dire I've ever played.
SETUP: I, under the name Na-Kas, am in Nohunters, with my friend and usual partner Dyslexic_Zealot. As usual, Zeal's spamming for a game--then we both notice that Heartcutter is in channel. Zealot, who seems to take a big liking to getting manhandled, whisps me--"Hey, we should challenge him to a game." So, I think, what the hell? I've already lost two games tonight, what's a third? And besides, this time I'll have an excuse...it's Heartcutter, after all.
FIRST GAME: I'll keep this short, since High_Latency promised to do a full report on it. 2v2 on Rivalry, myself and Dyslexic_Zealot on the top, jamellen and Hearcutter on the bottom. End result: we get mauled. Badly. I get finished off first, with Zeal not far behind, and while I'm waiting in Nohunters ofr him to come back so we can play a game we might win, I get a whisper--
"You wanna get a rematch?"
Now it should be noted that Dyslexic_Zealot's got some sort of complex--he ALWAYS needs a rematch. Call it determination, call it stupidity, what have you, the man doesn't like to lose. And in this case, I'm glad he did or that second game would never have happened.
SECOND GAME: This time things get switched up a bit--jamellen, Heartcutter's partner in the first game, was th obs and High_Latency was his partner.
Setup: Dire Straights w/ 4 obs
Na-Kas (me)--Yellow Protoss, upper left
Dyslexic_Zealot--Blue Zerg, upper right
High_Latency--White Zerg, lower left
Heartcutter--Red Terran, lower right
From the beginning, when Hearctutter selected terran, I was pretty sure we were done. I've got a deficiency I don't think anyone else on Bnet has--if Terrans are involved in the game, whether I'm playing them or fighting them, I lose. I don't get it either.
At any rate, Zeal informs me he's going for a muta build, while I go for a double robotics facility build. Before long, I've got a suttle, a reaver and a zealot ready to drop--and the overlord that had scouted me has moved on to sit over Zeal's hatchery. I've got a moment where they have no idea what I've got. I send the shuttle down, around the back of the zerg base, drop both passengers--right into a mess of hydras. Fortunately, i got about three or four shots off before the reaver went down, a couple of which landed square in his drone line. In a beautiful display of ineptitude, I got my escaping shuttle owned by a back of hydras by attempting to fly it through them. Oops.
Meanwhile, Zeal's got about 6-8 muta out and is harrassing High_Latency's base here and there, forcing him to spread out his hydras and taking virtually no losses. While in the back of my mind I was paranoid about what Heartcutter was doing, I figured that if we eliminated High_Latency we'd be ina much better position to deal with him. And when I saw a lone wraith take down one of Zeal's overlords, I thought he had gone mass air--and I couldn't have been more wrong.
I switched gears at this point--reavers weren't going to win the game, especialy not against Heartcutter if he had tanks. I constructed two more gateways, and starting producing mass shuttles and Dragoons. This would be the main trend for most of teh rest of the game. I took a chance and expanded to the island between the two mains on the left side, and dropped a force of four goons, two zeals and a reaver on High Latency. They sloshed through a surprisingly light Zerg defense as my three shuttles went back for reinforcements, and it failed to occurr to me that his main force was not in his base. Just as I was pounding away at the main, Heartcutter landed a force of Goliaths and Siege Tanks on his allie's island, and as my strike force went down, six more dragoons arrived on the scene, with more building back home.
At this point I sort of wondered what Zealot was doing. A quick look at the minimap displayed a white mass at the rear of the blue base--High_Latency had done a full on drop at my partner. A short "help" "my main" appeared on the screen--and in what was probably my worst move of the game I decided not to help him. I figured that if I could eliminate white entirely, that would be it. We would have the advantage and maybe the game. My six goons took down the damaged hydra den and with a couple of reinforcements the spawning pool as well. I thought I had him. Another reinforcement drop by Heartcutter proved me wrong--a hail of autocannon fire and the blast of Arclite shock cannons put a swift end to my incursion. But the damage had been done. I'm not sure if these attacks were what caused High_Latency's inactivity for most of the rest of the game (I'd like to think so), but the important thing to note is that from this point on, he was pretty much a minor factor in the game.
My observer found a Terran base located in between Heartcutter and High_Latency, while one of Zeal's scouts found that Heartcutter had also expanded to the base between the two of them on the left side. To put it simply, Hearcutter had three full bases running unmolested, and god only knows what kind of production going in his main. We were in trouble.
Zeal had expanded to the base between me and him (top middle), and I took left-central island, making a light cannon perimiter around the whle thing. Hile I was still working on the nexus there, I looked up to see Zealot's main gone. I still don't know what did it, but whetever had been sent there had completely annihilated it in a few seconds. Zealot had been weakened by the hydra drop, granted, but that force would've had to have been immense to take the place down some quickly. Zeal managed to evacuate a good amount of drones, though, and double expanded to the middle right island. As it stood, if we could hold the middle islands, we would have a severe resource advantage. The battle forthe right central island was the bloodiest of the game, and, in the end, decided the outcome. Heartcutter knew how important that island was, and (according to Zeal) if he'd attacked it right away with the forces tha thad mauled the Zerg main, the game would've been his right then and there. But he didn't--and the zerg bases hatcheries took form, spreading their creep acorss the island. I sent a few dragoons for backup, in case someone decided to make a foray.
The ensuing battles were a blur, so I may get a few out of order. First, (I think) Heartcutter made a masive goliath drop into the central right island. My dragoons fell in what seemed like a second, and a scrambled to get more, and this time, I had a new weapon--the dreaded psionic storm. I landed on the northern end of the island and, with some substantial losses, ousted Heartcutter's task force. At this point, Zealot's economy was almost entirely in the upper middle island, we knew that High_Latency was probably dry at his main with no expansions, and for one reason or another Hearcutter had yet to attack any of my bases. So i had four gateways, two robotics facilities and two forges all merrily working on pumping out ever more powerful protoss ground forces and the means to traonsport them. My economy had yet to be disrupted in the slightest, so I was able to keep a steady stream of units and upgrades coming. It should be noted that Heartcutter was in a simlar situation.
SKIRMISHES:
I have no idea what order these fights came in (again, I apologize) but the end result should be fairly clear.
1) I make a small drop onto Heartcutter's right-mid expansion, do some damage, and promptly get myself owned by a big fat group of Golaiths. I was really starting to hate those damn things.
2) My observer finds a massive force of goliaths and three tanks on Zeal's old main--I drop about twenty-twenty four dragoons, and move in to attack. This is where I found out that Dragoons are just better than gols on the ground--all would be users of Goliath Thunder, be warned. 3/3/3 Dragoons are extremely cost effective against Goliaths. Once the tanks we gone, it was a short but vicious round of firing that ended with about eight dragoons standing. I had taken out a horde, but my own force was decimated.
3) Hearcutter does an extremely large drop on the right central island. Despite large numbers of Zeal's zerglings and scourges intercepting transports (and a few ovies--apparently High_latency had been saving some hydras of this), we were overrung and subsequently booted from the island. Zeal now had a big one base.
4) I get numerous forays completely owned by Heartcutter--it becomes clear that I will not be able to reclaim that island jsut using the shuttles I have been using. Meanwhile, poor Dyslexic_Zealot is in no position to stop Heartcutter--the man has been undernearly constant attack by one opponent or the other the entire game, while my bases have been strangely untouched.
5) The big push: Hearcutter drops yet another monstrous force on Zeal's lone base--during the firing, Zeal once agani evacuates, this time to my main, where he constructs a hatchery to stay in the game. Despite numerous psi storms and dragoons defenders, we are wiped out.
TURNING POINT:
The tables have turned--now, Hearcutter has half the right central island, while High_Latency has built a hatchery on the southern end. In addition, Hearcutter has taken the top middle island, and in a short time wil be pulling in more reasources than either I or the all but destroyed Dyslexic_Zealot can handle. Zeal has scourges all over the place, intercepting transports and ovies, but with diminishing supplies, we're not in good shape. However, I have a large standing force, and Hearcutter's constant attacks have cleaned him out (or so it seems--I have no way to be sure). Until he can get things up and running at his new bases, he will be vulnerable, as the left middle island has given a good deal more income than Hearcutter. At this point I come up with a plan for taking him down, fully aware that if I screw this up, the game will be over. Dyslexic_Zealot has fought valiantly to keep the attackers at bay, and I, bad partner that I am, spent most of my time attempting attacks while only diverting a minimum of forces to defend Zeal. And now it has cost us--Zeal's near annihilation, and the enemy, for the first tiem in the game, is knocking on my front door. It's now or never, as I told Zeal.
I seperated my plan into three phases, and as it turns out, it worked a bit backward.
Phase 1--Retake tope central via Recall
Phase 2--Retake right central via Recall/drop/scourge (to prevent reinforcements)
Phase 3--Starve out and whittle away at Heartcutter's main.
PHASE 1: Knowing that my shuttles were getting ripped up and not having the gas to go carriers (not to mention that my air was unupgrasded, and Goliaths would have mauled them) I swiftly teched to a unit I am proud to say I actually got to use ina competetitive game--the Arbiter. The plan was to do a mass recall/drop on the upper central island and give it back to Zeal to get him back in this. Two Hallucinations later, the arbiter flew through a mess of rockets and recalled a horde of dragoons and templar onto the island. As the arbiter was finally torn from the skies, the blue bolts of templar energy rent the defenses apart. When the smoke cleared, I had lost my arbiter and about half of my attack force. Phase 2, the attack on the central island, would have to wait for a new arbiter.
PHASE 2: The arbiter did come, And in the same fashion in which I assaulted the top middle, so I went into the right middle isalnd. And got owned. Heartcutter was ready this time, and with some hydra backup, destroyed me utterly. Disheartened, I began massing Zeals (my gas was all but gone) and spending what gas I had on Dweb while yet a third arbiter warped in.
COUNTERATTACK: High_Latency had apparently massed a great deal of hydras and had been hording them, waiting to use them for when he really needed them. He figured that time was now. He dropped a mass of hydra on my main, the first real attack on my all game. Our numbers were about even, but in the end, upgrades won out. 1/0 hydras are simply no match for a 3/3/3 combination of Zeals and Dragoons. At the time, I also tore apart Hearcutter's expansion on the extreme right without resistance--he knew it wasn't important anymore, as it had been entirely drained.
PHASE 3: With the failure of Phase 2, I got a scourge escort from the Zeal, who was finally getting back on his feet. With about ten shuttles, I took everything out of my main and ferried it to the north side of Hearcutter's main. I figured that if I crippled his production, resources woudln't matter. After dropp my forces there, I picked up strays I had left at the sites of other battles, and, with an assembled strike force, moved in With two reavers, six templar, and a battalion of Dragoons. Hearcutter's tanks, if he ahd any left, must have been either on his new expanison or on his allie's island, for only a blast from an Arclite cannon retn the air as I moved in. A few storms later, and the goliaths he had massed behind his factories were no more. As his buildings began to lift off, I morphed my Tempalr into Archons, hoping to bring down the floating production facilities before they could escape. A number of hydra and two tanks dropped in, doing some damage, but not enough. While I was down to one reaver, two archons and only a smattering of dragoons, the base, and Hearcutter's supply and production, were destroyed.
ENDGAME:
Heatcutter's production was gone, and he was down to one functional base, as was his partner. Zeal, with a single base as well, was beginning to get a threatening force together. While I was low on gas, I was producing zealots a pretty good rate, and had forces spread at every unoccupied island around the map. Gatehring everything I had, I loaded eight or ten shuttles worth of zealots and dragoons, and brought my Arbiter from the base. Another hallucination provided cover for the drop, while the arbiter recalled the archons and reaver from Hearcutter's main onto the island. With his factories, Hearcutter simply had not had the mean to build another defense, and as the mining bases of him and his partner fell, gg's were exchanged, and for the first time in about half an hour, a breathed. I couldn't believe it was over. The bloody battle had ended.
LESSONS LEARNED:
--Goliaths, while excellent, are no match for massed ground, at least not in terms of cost efficiency.
--Hearcutter can and will make you look like a tool every time you think you have the upper hand.
--Upgrades. If you don't get them, your opponent will.
--Help your partner. We almost lost this one because I sacrficed Zeal to double attacks.
--It is possible to have a battle on an air map that consists almost entirly of ground forces.
--Don'tplay Hearcutter if you have a any kind of cardiac or respiratory problems.
--Man scourges are great. Zeal saved us from a few attacks by ripping into transports before they landed.
--Anyone, even someone as bad as me, can get lucky.
--It is vital to keep your opponent honest--hit his bases with at least lgiht forces to prevent naked expanding. |
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